This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Arrival is the most downloaded movie for the second week in a row.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(1)	Arrival	8.3 / trailer
2	(7)	Hacksaw Ridge	8.5 / trailer
3	(3)	Doctor Strange (DVDScr)	8.0 / trailer
4	(2)	Passengers (Subbed HDrip)	7.1 / trailer
5	(5)	Jack Reacher: Never Go Back	6.3 / trailer
6	(4)	La La Land (DVDscr)	8.8 / trailer
7	(…)	Underworld: Blood Wars	6.2 / trailer
8	(…)	Nocturnal Animals	7.6 / trailer
9	(8)	Manchester By The Sea (DVDscr)	8.3 / trailer
10	(9)	Lion (DVDscr)	8.0 / trailer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Removing search results is nothing new for Google. The company has been cleaning up its search index for years, in response to complaints from copyright holders.

Every week the search engine processes millions of requests targeting a wide range of websites that allegedly offer infringing content.

The process is fairly transparent as Google publishes all notices in a daily report. This allows us to keep track of the often staggering numbers, and today there’s a new milestone to report.

Since Google started counting, the company has now received takedown notices for a staggering one million websites. We’re not talking about the number of URLs that were reported in total, as these run in the billions, but the separate domain names that were called out.

A million…

Looking more closely at the statistics, we see that a large proportion of the targeted sites have only been flagged a few dozen times or less. Many of these were called out by mistake, including some high profile ones.

The White House, for example, is not your typical pirate site and neither is the U.S. Department of Justice. Still, both sites have been repeatedly reported to Google. The same is true for other big names such as NASA, Netflix, the BBC, and the New York Times.

The White House

The movie database IMDb is one of the sites that’s most frequently reported in error. In recent years Google was asked to remove more than 1,000 URLs, which the search engine wisely refused to do.

While it’s easy to highlight individual mistakes among a million entries, the majority of the requests are indeed targeted at pirates.

Many pirate sites regularly switch to new domains or have alternative URLs so users can circumvent blockades. The Pirate Bay alone has well over a hundred proxies, which adds up quickly over time.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

In years gone by, people trying to draw attention to a cause would do so in the streets, asking people to sign a paper petition in the hope that change could be brought about. These days, the Internet has more straightforward solutions.

People who spend a lot of time online have no doubt been asked to visit Change.org, a US-based petition site with more than 100 million users. This past December, for example, an unprecedented 4.6 million people signed a Change.org petition to make Hillary Clinton president.

The majority of petitions are focused on more niche campaigns, many with a local interest. However, for the past few years, the platform has been used for something else entirely – piracy.

Way back in 2012, UFC-owner Zuffa complained to Google that someone had posted links to its PPV event, UFC 153, on Change.org. For the next several years, the complaints continued to come in, from giants including Columbia Pictures (The Interview), Lionsgate (The Expendables), publisher Simon & Schuster, and dozens of others.

For the most part, complaints have been fairly well spread out. However, during recent months the frequency has increased to a few complaints a week. It’s rare for Google to remove search links since it appears that Change.org acts quickly to remove content.

However, a scan through the site itself reveals hundreds of ‘petitions’ containing numerous ‘pirate’ terms.

One such ‘petition’ features Straight Outta Compton along with links to an external site where the movie can be viewed. The petition has a target of 500 signatures and for no clear reason it achieved 230 before running its course.

Also provoking vigorous head-scratches are the reasons voters give for participating in Change.org petitions featuring pirate movies.

Links are accessible to anyone, but people actually sign in and comment with gems like “I wanna watch straight outta compton” and “I’m signing because i’m very anxious to watch this movie and I love rap music.”

Another, which is perhaps more insightful, suggests an educational benefit. “People should know of what it was like living back in the streets,” the voter wrote.

Sadly and perhaps predictably, some of the ‘movie’ links posted to Change.org lead to external sites with questionable motives. We’re not keen to expose readers to them, so we’ll omit the links from here to save any unwanted trouble.

However, it seems likely from the comments left by some Change.org members that their decision to vote for a free movie download turned into a rather unpleasant experience. This user expected “[BluRay-1080p] ‘Warcraft’ On-line Movie [2016] F.ull F.r.e.e” but got something else.

But despite the misuse of Change.org for these ‘pirate’ links and probable malware, some people actually sign these ‘petitions’ for reasons that are perhaps worthy of a real call for change.

A pair of users from Australia and New Zealand, who signed a petition for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2”, give their reasons for supporting the cause as follows.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

There a thousands of options for people who want to store files online and Google Drive is one of them. The cloud hosting service allows users to store all content imaginable, videos included.

Whether it’s wise or not, some people even use Drive to store pirated files. This usually doesn’t cause any problems but when they’re shared in public, alarm bells may start to go off.

This week we received a tip from a reader who was unable to share a link to a screener copy of a Hollywood blockbuster. Instead of a public link, Google drive warned that sharing the file in question could violate its terms of service.

Through a follow-up test, we were able to replicate the result. Google Drive didn’t specify what the violation was but instead linked to information about the DMCA takedown procedure as additional information.

Error

So what’s going on here? We contacted Google directly to find out more about the process involved, and how files are flagged as copyright-infringing. Unfortunately, the company wasn’t very forthcoming.

“We don’t comment on the details of our anti-abuse mechanisms on Drive,” a Google spokesperson replied.

Luckily, we were able to find some more information in a transcript from a Copyright Office Roundtable that took place in San Francisco last year. Here, Google was asked about its anti-piracy policies.

During the discussion, Fox Entertainment Group’s Elizabeth Valentina pointed out that several prominent piracy platforms use Google as a video host, as we previously highlighted as well. She then added that hash filtering could make a huge difference here.

Google’s legal director for copyright Fred Von Lohman did not refute this claim but mentioned that Google drive already uses hash matching to detect infringing material.

“I just want to note that, contrary to Ms. Valentina’s statement or suggestion, Google Drive does hash matching. So we do that, another voluntary measure,” Von Lohman said at the time.

No concrete details were provided, but it’s likely that Google Drive records the hashes of content for which they receive valid takedown requests. These hashes are unique to the file in question, which makes it possible to identify copies accurately.

If other Google Drive users then attempt to share a copy of the same file, they are blocked from doing so. However, merely storing the file in a private Drive account doesn’t raise any red flags.

Hash filtering is not something new for cloud-hosting services or even Google. Dropbox, for example, has had a similar system in place for several years, and YouTube’s Content-ID system also relies on hash filtering.

That said, the Google Drive equivalent isn’t well known to the public, or even rightsholders, it seems.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

While torrents will work without them, trackers are valuable tools for finding other BitTorrent peers with the same content. They’re vital for those who have DHT and PEX disabled in their clients.

Trackers are fairly thin on the ground so to help to fill that gap, in early 2016, zer0day was born. The tracker can be used by anyone, but it had a spurt of growth when ETRG (ExtraTorrent’s release group) began using it.

As previously reported, the site had a bit of a bumpy ride in its early days but since August last year has been operating smoothly and without complaint. However, that all changed recently when the tracker was contacted by Russian telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor.

“We send you a notification on violation of exclusive rights to objects of copyright and (or) related rights (except photographic works and works obtained by processes analogous to photography), published on the website in the information and telecommunication network Internet tracker.zer0day.to,” Rozcomnadzor’s email reads.

“According to the article 15.2 of the Federal Law No. 149-FZ of July 27, 2006 ‘On Information, Information Technologies and on Protection of Information’, the access to the illegal published content is to be restricted within three (3) working days on receipt of this notice.”

Rozcomnadzor follows up by stating clearly that if the site doesn’t remove the “illegal published content”, it will have the tracker blocked by Russian ISPs.

Of course, stand-alone trackers do not carry any content, illicit or otherwise. They do not even have direct links to content. Trackers carry a hash value which can be matched to an IP address which in turn may be sharing that content. Even if a tracker ceases to exist, the content will continue to be shared, so targeting a tracker is useless.

It seems, however, that Rozcomnadzor either doesn’t a) understand or b) particularly care. In an attachment, the watchdog references a decision of the Moscow City Court dated November 28, 2016.

The movie ‘Viking’ listed in the complaint has been at the center of several other blocking actions in Russia, so it’s no surprise to see it listed here. However, zer0day isn’t hosting the movie and the URL cited by the watchdog is part of the tracker’s main announce URL and doesn’t link to the content either.

Furthermore, zer0day’s admin informs TorrentFreak that he can’t comply since the tracker doesn’t even have the feature to kill a hash.

“I won’t be removing anything. The tracker is compiled so that it doesn’t have a hash blacklist,” he says.

The only solution would be to block the whole site. Zer0day won’t be doing that but the Moscow City Court could if it processes multiple unresolved complaints about the tracker. But, as mentioned earlier, that won’t do a thing to stop people sharing Viking, as anyone with DHT and PEX enabled in their torrent client will carry on as usual.

Since the last time we spoke with zer0day, things have continued much as before with the tracker, albeit with some developments in the pipeline.

“It is tracking a modest 1 million torrents with around 3 to 4 million peers,” its admin says.

“Also, I started working on a simple online torrent editor which will be available on the tracker’s website. The script is quite simple but I’m so busy that I don’t know when it will be finished.”

Zer0day can be found here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.